FIG. 1 shows an array of surface emitting laser diodes, in this case emitting light through the substrate, built using a conventional surface emitting laser architecture. These devices may be standard vertical cavity surface emitting lasers, or devices like those described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,243,407, 6,404,797, 6,614,827, 6,778,582, and 6,898,225, the contents of each of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
Arrays of surface emitting laser diodes are typically formed on a common n-type substrate and thus have a common n-contact. FIG. 1B illustrates an array of surface emitting laser diodes formed on an n-type substrate. Each laser diode is commonly patterned as a mesa and may have a total height of several microns or more depending upon the total thickness of distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs) and quantum well gain regions. Each laser diode may, for example, have an individual contact to a p-type semiconductor region. A separate common contact to the n-type substrate is formed. The equivalent circuit of the laser diodes is shown in FIG. 1B. However, there are several drawbacks to the parallel electrical connection.
One drawback is that small variations in diode characteristics can cause large variations in diode current, resulting in non-uniform light output and reduced efficiency. In a parallel configuration, all the diodes have basically the same forward voltage applied to their junctions. However, in practice the laser diodes will have slight variations in diode characteristics, thermal properties, and resistance. The amount of current that an ideal laser diode draws for a particular voltage increases exponentially with temperature. If one diode is slightly hotter than its neighbors, it will pass more current. Passing more current will cause the diode to heat up more, and it will pass even more current. This thermal run away means that most of the current delivered to the array will pass through just a small number of hot diodes. Even if thermal runaway does not occur, the example illustrates the impact of small non-uniformities on the current distribution over the array, and the problems associated with attempting to ensure uniform drive current across the array.
One potential solution to this problem is to add a resistor in series with every diode to regulate the current. This complicates the array interconnect scheme, and the power dissipated in the array of series resistors significantly lowers the overall system efficiency.
Another drawback with a parallel connection of laser diodes in an array is that the required current scales with the number of laser diodes in the array. As a result, a low-voltage, high current power supply is required to drive the array of laser diodes. As an illustrative example, a parallel connection scheme requires a high-current (as much as 1 A per emitter for large aperture devices) at low voltage (typically 2V). However, low voltage, high current power supplies tend to be costly and inefficient compared with higher voltage, lower current power supplies.
Moreover, another drawback of a parallel connection of laser diodes is that the high drive current places significant demands on the electrical interconnect structures used to deliver the current to the chip. In particular, a parallel connection of laser diodes requires designing portions of the interconnects to be compatible with high drive currents.
The problems with a parallel-connected array of laser diodes outlined above can be eliminated if the individual diodes in the array are electrically connected in series. In a series connection all of the laser diodes are forced to pass the same current, regardless of local temperature variations and/or differences between diodes in the array. The current requirements are reduced compared with a parallel electrical connection, allowing a smaller and more efficient power supply to be used. Additionally, the current delivered to the array is low enough to be easily handled by conventional die interconnect techniques such as flip-chip and wire bonds.
The difficulty with a series-connected array is that the individual diodes must be electrically isolated. This can be easily achieved if each diode is formed on its own die, but the use of multiple dies makes assembly difficult and expensive. It is much more desirable to form electrically isolated diodes on a common substrate. However, the device structure for surface emitting lasers is relatively deep (typically approximately 8 μm or more). Additionally, the vertical structure consists of distributed Bragg reflectors and a gain region that are formed from multiple layers of differing composition as well as different doping. An efficient surface emitting laser diode requires a low resistance connection such that many of the layers connected to the laser diode require a high doping-thickness product. There are thus a number of constraints on a fabrication process for efficient arrays of surface emitting lasers formed on a common substrate. Consequently, isolation techniques used in the semiconductor industry to isolate planar semiconductor devices cannot be directly applied to forming a series-connected array
Therefore what is desired is an improved apparatus, system, and method for operating surface emitting lasers in series on a common substrate.